The Living Word for week up to Sunday, December 24, 2017: Part 3 of 5

Wednesday, Dec 20: Luke 1:26-38

Mary hears from the angel Gabriel that the Holy Spirit will cause her to conceive and bear a child who will be called the Son of God, and her older relative Elizabeth, who was thought barren, has also conceived.

26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, ²⁷ to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. ²⁸ Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favoured woman! The Lord is with you!”

• Gabriel seems to have appeared to Mary in her own home, but only a divine messenger would start a conversation with such an exalted greeting.

29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. ³⁰ “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favour with God!

• She found favour (lit. “you did find favour”), a reminder that grace is found and received, never earned.

³¹ You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. ³² He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. ³³ And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”

• These verses recall the “kingdom that will endure for ever” and the well-remembered words “great” and “throne” and “Son” that were part of the language of the prophecy over David in 1 Samuel 7:8-16.

34  Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”

35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and He will be called the Son of God.

• “The Holy Spirit will come upon you” recalls the words of Isaiah 32:15 which is a restoration promise.
• The Second Person of the Trinity, by conception of the Holy Spirit, remained God but “became flesh or “became human”, NLT, John 1:14. – fully God and fully man.

³⁶ What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. ³⁷ For the word of God will never fail.”

• She could have been a cousin, or an aunt, or another relative. Cousin (King James) as popularly used in a loose sense, is not incorrect. Mary was of the house of David, and Elizabeth of the house of Aaron, but they might be related by their mothers. It was common for those of the families of David and Levi to intermarry.

38 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.

• This passage doesn’t support a religious view that wants to deify Mary. She is clearly here “a vessel to receive, not a fountain to dispense” (Lenski).
• Later we are told that Mary headed to the hill country of Judah, from Nazareth in Galilee where she lived – a north to south journey of some distance.

Application

Why did Mary find such favour with God?

• She was the right person in the right place at the right time. Sometimes we could be that right person, the only right person, in the right place for God to use. He is not a ‘respecter of persons’ like someone who looks for track record or the best CV.
• She was the right person in terms of character. We embody a mixture of experience and passion and spirituality and gift, all vital to who we are. But none of this can be used by God unless we have the qualities of character that He seeks: submitted to Him, teachable by Him, loving and forebearing like Him. Mary, at her young age, had this kind of maturity of character. God looks to us to see if we are submitted and teachable, and whether we uphold His ways or are swayed by the ways of men.
• She was the right person in terms of her worldview and beliefs. She had a foundation in the Scriptures, and if she was surprised by an angel manifesting as visible and speaking to her – who wouldn’t be – she was not surprised by the angel’s recollection of the promise of the Son of God linked to the Throne of David. We can’t avoid having a worldview that is from the world we live in, but do we also hold a heavenly worldview?

Discussion starter

3. Is our heavenly or spiritual worldview separated from our everyday worldview and beliefs about how our world works, or are we able, at times, to connect them and see how God’s heavenly purpose seeks to influence our earthly lives? Quite a profound question to consider, but this is a season when we remember a profound miracle where heaven impacted the earthly order!